Read Online Band of Gypsys by Gwyneth Jones - Free Book Online Page A

father was doesn’t seem to be hereditary: but I was affected. Afterward I had awful waking nightmares, aftershocks.’
    Only Fiorinda’s closest friends knew the extent of those “aftershocks”. She looked around, from face to face, not trying to address the obdurate, speaking to the ones who could be reached. ‘I get flashbacks, still. I see people dead, for instance—who would have died if there’d been a different outcome, I think. It was very disturbing, nothing so harmless as hallucinations, because these glimpses came from a place where the difference between “unreal” and “real” doesn’t mean anything. And it’s a living hell. Believe me, our information space, the world we live in and create every moment, cannot afford another of those detonations.’
    Fear touched them then, or some of them. Fear not of hippie magic but of chaos: the bottomless terror implicit in those colourful images, an insane universe—
    The National Sweetheart smiled bravely. Reinvented since Dissolution days: shorn of that wild cascade of hair, severely neat in a grey tailored jacket, plum shirt with a little string tie: was she beautiful? Or barely pretty? She was an icon, a legend, a beloved survivor, it would be senseless to try and bully her.
    ‘If this could…could be the end of it?’ suggested Wendy Carter slowly. ‘A self-correcting mechanism? Aberrant minds with this horrible potential for effective “magic”’ (Mairead glared), ‘are vanishingly rare, and can’t reach critical mass without the global audience? Which no longer exists, and may never recover in the same form? If that’s the case, perhaps the so-called Neurobomb—’
    ‘You’re missing the point, Wendy,’ said the arms trade man. ‘This is not about “a new Rufus”. The ‘A’ team died, sure: but now everyone knows what can be done with this new science. How far behind do you think China is, right now?’
    The door opened. The session was over: Zip Crimson, their barmy dress guard, stood waiting. The Working Party rose. ‘I would very much like to know more about the theory,’ said His Grace Dr Jones. ‘Would…could Mr Pender himself talk to the Bio-Ethics Committee?’
    ‘He could,’ said Chip. ‘But I think you’ll find he won’t.’
    ‘He’d only advise you to chop wood and draw water,’ warned Verlaine.
    ‘Or tell you to eat your hat.’
    ‘Should you be wearing a hat.’
    Fiorinda propped her head on both hands. Not bad. Told them nothing that isn’t public domaint, and didn’t answer a single dodgy question. Not that she could take much credit for the latter: the suits seemed to have forgotten they wanted answers, as soon as they saw that they hadn’t got Ax or Sage. I’m just the girlfriend. They have alpha females on their own team, but I’m obviously not one of those. Noted only for charity work; and getting rescued. They dismiss me, and long may that continue.
    The brain in the scans was not her own, it was a textbook simulation. But it could well have been, the state she’d been in when Ax and Sage took her to Mexico last spring. Truth be known, she owed a great deal to those lunatics at Lavoisier. Shame I want to be a rockstar, she thought. There’s this angel with a fiery sword in the way, damn it. Was that the right image? Angels and fiery swords seemed associated, but she had no idea why. Have to ask the Bishop.
    Chip and Verlaine watched her, and waited until she looked up.
    ‘They could have asked us for a briefing on fusion theory,’ complained Chip.
    ‘Nah,’ said Fiorinda. ‘I mean, look at you. D’you think they got the message?’
    ‘About the big nasty Black Hole nibbling at our toes? Wendy Carter, yeah, and maybe Boris,’ said Chip. ‘But they won’t be making the decisions. That weapons trade pair were scary. They don’t give a toss.’
    ‘What if they want you to take a scan?,’ wondered Verlaine
    ‘No problem. They won’t ask, but it wouldn’t matter.’ Fiorinda sat back,